


Ironwood

by prairiecrow



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Friendship, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garak lied, of course, when he told Bashir that he was perfectly satisfied with the way things turned out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ironwood

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Set shortly after "The Wire". 2) Pre-slash if you have the right goggles on, straight friendship if you don't.

He'd lied, of course, when he told Doctor Bashir that he was perfectly satisfied with the way things had turned out  _vis a vis_  his implant. Garak made it his business to twist the truth, which meant that he had to know exactly where it stood at all times — and he was consequently aware that in fact he was miserably unhappy in most respects. He was still in exile, with no significant hope of ever getting far enough back into Tain's good graces to return to the homeworld he desperately pined for; he was still in withdrawal from the implant's stimulation, which left him feeling like the marrow of his bones had been replaced with a slurry of broken glass and lead; and he was still trapped in an environment that was too cold, too bright, and occupied to a large degree by a race full of hostile aliens who would happily see him shoved out the nearest airlock.  
  
In short, he was isolated and sick and under siege, and although he was able to put forward a cheerful smile and a line of witty patter he couldn't deny the underlying reality: that Cardassians were happiest in a crowd of their own kind, and he hadn't seen a properly scaled face regard him with friendliness in many years. The weight of all those empty days weighed on him when he lay in his bed at night, crushing him so that he could barely breathe…  
  
… but trained operatives of the Order, even those in disgrace, were not weak reeds to snap under the storms of unhappy fate. Garak had always been an exemplary model of the type: he was an ironwood, capable of surviving the most relentless pressures, the heat of savage suns and the ache of prolonged droughts. The ground beneath him was sandy and shallow, but he'd sent roots down as deep as he could and he had endured. And he would continue to endure for the sake of loyalty and duty, even though his motherland had cast him into a cold and distant prison and, it seemed, thrown away the key.  
  
Yes, Garak had very little to celebrate. Even the continuation of his life was, from many perspectives, a disaster and a calamity that should have made him curse Bashir's name and perhaps even arrange an "accident" as fit repayment for the Human's sanctimonious meddling. It wasn't as if the possibility hadn't occurred to him after he'd woken up in the Infirmary and realized that he was going to survive, sickening headache and nausea and loneliness and all.  
  
But part of what had enabled Garak to retain his sanity through his long banishment was his keen sense of irony, and he couldn't help but appreciate the twist in this particular snake's tail: that the acts of bravery and determination and yes, of kindness that had ensured the continuation of Garak's suffering, and which should given him a profound distaste for the man responsible for them, had in fact resulted in exactly the opposite effect. Bashir's loyalty, while purely personal in its focus and thus antithetical to Cardassian values, had nonetheless been offered freely and without conditions: he had cleaved to Garak's side and refused to abandon him even in his darkest and most vicious hours. He had offered comfort in every way he could, and at the end he had been willing to sacrifice his own safety and his very life. He had risked death to save a spy of an enemy government, evidently for no other reason than that he considered that spy his friend.  
  
And  _that_  was what Garak simply could not understand. He had never made things easy for Bashir: far from it, he'd challenged and frustrated the young Human at every turn. He'd played with the naive boy for his own amusement and used the guileless Doctor to his ends whenever it suited him. He hadn't given Bashir a single reason to go haring off into Cardassian space and face down its eldest spymaster to bargain for the life of his weekly lunch companion.  
  
And yet Bashir had done exactly that. And that meant…  
  
… that meant that Garak was nowhere near as alone as he'd always supposed, even if the friendship came from a non-Cardassian, a  _hlessija_ , a member of a lesser race. Even if the face that offered him the warmth of a smile was disarmingly golden and uncannily smooth, and the heart that beat within that kindly breast skipped along at a rapid mammalian pace. Even if the charming child was ignorant of all the Rites and the Oaths, the cues and the signs that Garak was now inclined to give him.  
  
Even if a vast gulf lay between them, possibly beyond the power of either to bridge any further, the friendship remained, inarguable. Therefore the ironwood sighed secretly and opened his leaves to catch the breath of fresher air that whispered through his boughs, and sent down new tendrils through the rocky ground to the hidden stream that had wended its gradual way into his dry and bitter domain.  
  
THE END


End file.
